pleoepelel wrote:
3/10, you’ll get some responses
You underestimated how dense the LRC is
Was Ritz just a vastly overrated high school cross-country runner? His "great" 14:10 was made a mockery of today
High School Running
Distance
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have a conversation wrote:
ringo-starr wrote:
I think these people don't know he got 3rd at the world junior cross country championships as a high schooler (in the early spring of his senior year). He lost to Bekele and one other guy. If that's overrated...
He was also 4th at NCAAs as a true freshman (so, the year he graduated from high school). Not strictly a high school accomplishment, true, but he didn't have all that much time between his HS career and being 4th at NCAAs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_IAAF_World_Cross_Country_Championships_%E2%80%93_Junior_men%27s_raceHe was third. But it was muddy so a lot of Africans did bad. And he lost by over a minute to Bekele. The US senior men’s team got the TEAM SILVER just a few years ago in muddy conditions also.
Nico was 4th as Freshman.
German was in 3rd place with 3k to go before injuring himself and dropping out.
Top 5 as a freshman isn’t unheard of.
He lost by over a minute to Bekele who also won the silver in the SENIOR short race that year. Even then he was already one of the best runners in the world.
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You forgot second and third were all Americans in the 2000 MIS race. Tim Moore was national champion next year and lost by almost a minute to ritz.
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$0.02 wrote:
SDSU Aztec wrote:
You're correct and that only buttresses him being called a GOAT. I'm pretty good at remembering times; maybe the 13:44 was his second attempt at the record? I didn't realize he came so close to Lindgren's record.
Is referring to him as "Nathan" an inside joke?
Ritz lost to UW redshirt freshman Matt Tegenkamp at US Jrs and then they went 3 and 5 at worlds before senior track. Ritz's participation there cost him a low sub-4, the 3200/2M and 5000 records.
Ritz was .1 off of Lindgren's record but he was actually capable of more, just worn out at the end. He kept trying to do super human things at the end of HS but he was in his own version of a mini slump. Still winning. Still lapping people. Just not hitting the records he wanted to.
Webb kind of stole the show after Pre and that whole narrative of Webb vs Ritz wasnt determined until a 2 Mile at Pre Classic and a 10000 where Webb won 27:3x to 27:3x, 3-4 years later. The 10000 result caused Dathan to move up to the marathon where his second rival, Ryan Hall, was excelling and this was someone he was actually better than. Ryan had run 13:15-16 with Dobson against Time Broe at USATF but then Hall the next year set the half marathon record and then took to the marathon. Hall became a face of marathoning almost overnight.
So poor Ritz became displaced. In retrospect he shouldve just accepted the loss to Webb in the 10000 and not made it an event changing ordeal. Ritz dropped down to 5000 randomly and ran 12:56 while marathon training. There may have been a 12:52-53 there. He was that good.
Wow. As a mid-30s runner, I remember all of that and the details really take me back! That 10k (which also saw Anthony Fam hang on for longer than anyone expected) was a super hot ticket in 2006. It’s still hard to believe Webb would be all but finished within a few years of that win.
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The record stands for 21 years and it takes “the greatest cross country you think wasn’t that fast and you think they make a mockery off it and you think it nothing special. So in what percentile does that now put that not so fast 14:10 in relation to all the runners in the past 21 years. I bet that’s pretty special considering all the stud runners we’ve seen each year. As an old man I look forward and hope to see records get broken and happy to see our children be better than we were. It’s also expected that at least some will be better. I guess you were never that fast in high school, right.
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crosscountryrecords... wrote:
Like someone said earlier, Ritz ran his 14:10 alone, and it was done on a different course. Cross Country records should mainly be kept from course to course, it's very difficult to compare a different course to a different one. With so many kids running crazy fast times on that course in Alabama, i'd question to course, not it's length but it's difficulty. I'd love to have seen what Ritz could have run on that course with that competition.. I watched him run is 13:44 on the track and it was amazing. These kids are good for sure, but i have a hard time comparing cross country course times. Lets see what they do on the track.
Agree this is too hard to say plus other factors like shoes, drafting, weather and footing. It will be interesting to see how their track times turn out. I think we can all agree that 14:10 time is one of the all time best performances given few athletes have gotten close. Is Colin faster? I honestly would give Ritz a slight edge, but I think they are fairly close. Ritz ran 14:35 in Orlando vs 14:26 for Colin at Woodward. Are those courses a little more on par?
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Michiganian13 wrote:
No, you all are missing one very important point, Dathan ran alone, the whole way!!!!! It makes a HUGE difference!!!! I was at 2 miles when he went by in 8:58 with no one in site, pushing hard all alone. There was no pack to suck off of, it was just him. Dathan time may not be faster but his 14:10 is worth more in my opinion.
It takes competitors, 100m to 1500m. There is anaerobic pain to fight through and/or endorphins necessary for top performances. Competitors do not necessarily help, events 3000m to 1/2 Marathon, events that are (85 to 95)% aerobic. Competitors may make some runners go out too fast. Competitors may cause a runner to Cole Hocker-it. Save too much for 300m kick. Competitors can throw off timing with pushing & tripping, overt or subtle. My fastest 10K's were actually 6.4 mile tempo runs.
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